EU leaders issue statement on European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, Roxana Mînzatu, Executive Vice-President for Social Rights and Skills, Quality Jobs and Preparedness, and Hadja Lahbib, Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management have made a statement ahead of the Roma Holocaust Memorial Day, on August 2, 

“Today, we commemorate the 4,300 Roma and Sinti children, women, and men who, on August 2, 1944, were forcibly taken from their imprisonment at Auschwitz-Birkenau and led to their deaths in the gas chambers — a brutal act of mass murder committed 81 years ago.

On this solemn day we remember all the 500,000 Roma that were killed during the Holocaust - a genocide that claimed millions of innocent lives. It tore apart families, communities, and cultures across Europe.

This year also marks a decade since the official recognition of 2 August as European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day. We unequivocally reaffirm our commitment to honour the memory of Roma and Sinti victims and ensure their suffering is never forgotten, overlooked or diminished.

We stand united against the discrimination and antigypsyism that continue to pose a serious threat to Roma communities. We also reaffirm our pledge to preserve the memory of Roma Holocaust through education, remembrance, and the fight against all forms of Holocaust denial and distortion.

We hold the memory of the victims in our hearts and stand together in determination as we work to ensure that human dignity is upheld, diversity is celebrated and hatred has no place.

Na bisteras. We will never forget," reads the statement.

In 2015, the European Parliament declared August 2 as the annual 'European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day' to honour the 500,000 European Roma – representing at least a quarter of their total population at that time – murdered in Nazi-occupied Europe.